Matthew,

I sympathize with the core issues you are struggling to articulate.  Your issues are elusive but so profound that it is worth playing the academic game to explore them.  Perhaps you might find one or more of the ensuing questions a useful way of accessing your questions:

(1) Is PUL ultimately just Self-love?  If God is All That Is, cannot our love ultimately be reduced to God loving "Himself?"   Or must PUL imply a relationship with "the wholly other?"  In other words, is dualism a necessary condition for PUL?

(2) Why would an omniscient and omnipotent God create anything at all?  From God's timeless perspective, He presumably foreknew how each of His unique creatures would choose and develop.  So what would God gain by translating His theoretical knowledge into a reality that brought Him no surprises?  On a monistic model. what is the point of creation?

(3) Suppose that PUL has no value unless it is freely and independently expressed?  Is an all-powerful God capable of creating self-determined units of consciousness who operate freely and independently of divine micro-management snd predestination?  If so, can God permit these units of consciousness to chronically make choices that defy His "will?"  Can God permit free units of consciousness to be permanently separated from mystical union with His loving nature?  Or must God eventually either deprive them of their freedom to resist or annihilate their identies so that their soul substance can be returned unpolluted to the Source?   

(4) Is God "curious?"  Can an all-power God create a universe whose laws and evolution operate independently of "His" micro-management?  Can God permit uncontrolled and unplanned chaos?

Don

Another perspective which in the end is maybe different more in language than substance might hold that life (both internal and external), and indeed the totality of existence proceeds to a natural 'flow'  informed by 'basic goodness', or you as you might say PUL.

Free will means we are not bound to adhere to this, although it implies that there is an optimum behaviour for every situation. The realised person may by intuitive means to varying degrees be hooked into this flow to the point where the more realised they are, the closer their behaviour comes to perfectly playing their part in it -  to realising it.

The mistaken sense that we cannot trust in this basic goodness and flow together the with the  consequent mistaken sense of isolation (leading to the delusion of presuming the existence of an independent and disconnected self) leads to fear - the whole leading to selfish behaviours at variance with flow by which the individual attempts to get ahead at the expense of others, the environment, and whatever.

Which can become wholly delusional and imagination driven - we suffer all sorts of paranoia.

The difficulty it can be argued is that this fear leads to such an level of intellectual chatter (judging people and things, obsessing about the past, worrying about the future, figuring out how to get ahead) that it comes to drown out the still small voice - our higher intuition if you like.

Which channel can be seen as the source of PUL, of compassion and wise knowing, the link to basic goodness or to God - this includes creativity, joyfulness, equanimity, loving kindness, joy in others' well being, ability to appreciate the beauty that surrounds us and so on.

Most spiritual paths entail quieting the chatter so we can come back to hearing the still small voice again. With this quieting and stillness comes an open awareness that is less inclined to by preconception limit the extent of our awareness, and in doing so it opens the way to extra normal experience.

Do most of us live according to flow (or in accordance with the Divine plan)? Definitely some of the time, but for much of it probably not. We've only got to listen to our own internal dialogue, emotions  and their intensity, and the problems we have connecting with our hearts and loving to realise this. Although it's a very deeply buried fact in the average person.

This is why practices like meditation, contemplation, right living and prayer can bring us back to God, or to our true nature - they still the chatter and allow us access to our basic goodness. (which at its deepest level you could argue contains a part of God - deep down we all know what's good for us, and for others, even if we don't live that way)

Our internal and external experience and behaviours consequently and depending on the situation we perceive mix what's down to flow, PUL and true 'seeing', and what's delusional and the product of egotistical mind.

Pulling it off entails blending and balancing the feeling heart (right brain) and the thinking head (left brain) for the greatest good - with the possibility over the horizon that this entire dualistic reality and existence may ultimately prove a manifestation of collective ego mind - one in which it's possible to live in accordance with flow or the Divine plan, but which ultimately be wholly transcended.

By this measure our life task is to move ourselves as far in the direction of PUL as we can manage. It's not a given, a life spent giving in to all of our selfish urges to pleasure is normally deeply painful, but more importantly gets us locked deeper into ego mind and further removed from the heart.

I'm not sure if that's going to be much help Doc, as it's not written to academic standards and is in  more Buddhist inspired than Christian language, but that's roughly the sort of model taught by the Eastern traditions....

I figure that when something such as a lucid dream takes place, the creative aspect of being is engaged. If we have it in mind to live according to divine will, our creative processes will connect to how divine will creates. If we have something else in mind, we'll create accordingly.  If one wants to make certain that they create according to divine will, then one should be certain that one is committed to divine will. A part of being committed to divine will is being willing to question all of one's assumptions, so divine will and truth can be revealed. Divine will will not force itself upon us.

It is true that we all take part in the process of creation. However, in order for things to eventually work out in a harmonious and wonderful manner, some sort of plan needs to be in place. Such a plan would need to be guided by an intelligence that has an unfettered comprehensive view of all that takes place, and that lives completely according to love.

Since the spirit of love is involved,  the freedom for each soul to decide for itself would be involved. Similar to how a loving parent will allow his or her child to decide for his or her self. I've had some experiences which really emphasized the factor of choice. It was like, "Okay Albert, it is up to you. Do you want to live according to divine will, love and truth, or do you want to go the other way?"

Sometimes people speak in terms of how we are all pieces of God, and I believe this is true. However, this doesn't mean we should over inflate our role in the grand scheme of things. I figure that God existed to an infinite extent before he got around to creating us. Therefore, no matter how large one of us might become, we are quite small compared to God.

If one thinks in terms of who/what makes the choice to live according to either divine will or the other direction, one is liable to think in terms of "Is there such a thing as an infinite soul, or is our individuality nothing but an illusion?"  If one considers how complex the physical universe is, how incredibly complex biological life forms are, and how complex spirit levels of organization are, it is hard to imagine that the intelligence that found a way to make all of these things possible, wouldn't be capable of finding a way to create distinctive souls.

The issue of choice also shows how a being who started as "one," became many.  Once a being gets to the point where it experiences life according to the decisions it makes, and no one else has to experience the results to the same extent, this being has become a unique and particular being. It would be quite unwise and unloving to create such a being in a manner where after it makes the right choices and chooses to live according to love and divine will, it doesn't get to exist eternally. What is the point of spiritually evolving to a perfected way of being, if you don't get to exist eternally?

I've had a few experiences which enabled me to ponder what it would be like to be the only being who existed, for all of eternity. This possibility felt really creepy. Life would be quite empty without having another being I could share love with. I figure God might've had the same dilemma, until he got around to creating us. As explained in the preceeding paragraph, the point where each of us obtained the ability to determine our own fate, is the point where each of us became a distinctive unique being, even though we all come from the same oneness, and have the same basic nature.

recoverer-

Pls don't misunderstand, I don't buy into ACIM.  I was just repeating some of its main concepts.

For what it's worth, I personally think the agenda of ACIM is to make us think that guilt and sin are just illusions in order to remove accountability for our actions. 

And, when we don't feel accountable for what we do or say, the injunctions of the Bible and Jesus become essentially irrelevant.

Which, I think, is where ACIM wants to steer us.  Away from the Bible.

R

Albert and Roger,

Consider the biblcal teaching that human are create "in the image of God (Genesis 1;26-27)."
In John 10:33-36, Jesus links His unique role as God incarnate with the status of humans as "gods."  The Hebrew terms used for "image and likeness" are normally applied to Ancient Near Eastern statues.  Powerful kings and Egyptian Pharaohs would order statues of themselves to be set up in conquered territories to assert their symbolic presence and authority there, despite their physical absence.  So the phrase "image of God" means that we represent God's presence and authority in the world despite God's perceived absence.  In other words, we are created to be mini-creators or gods in the making and are tasked with the role of stewards or conservation officers of the earth (Genesis 2:15).  This role involves both the joy of constant discovery and the freedom to both upgrade or abuse creation.  The role also fits nicely with the biblical teaching that God graciously declines to micro-manage the forces of chaos so that the universe itself can surprise Him and function to an indefinite extent independently of His active will.  

Peter supplements the concept of God's image by informing us that we are destined "to participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)."  Thus, Peter links our role as apprentice gods in the making to our ultimate restoration to a unity with God that allows us in some sense to retain our individuality and uniqueness.  This model of God also hints at the possibility that the essence of God includes free creativity and hence the opposite of monism.  In my view, PUL is a meaningless concept without relationships with the genuinely wholly other.  There is no way to formulate an all-encompassing cosmology without coming to terms with the purpose of creation.

Don  

I guess I don't see us as separate from the Divine, Matthew. I think we are Divine.

But, perhaps Our Divinity is very polite, very gracious, and, therefore, happy for each of us to wear "any old thing" in It's Presence.

love, blink

I think Don the problem is that both good and evil are of our own creation, inasmuch as they are attributes of this relativistic reality and an artefact of the situation we find ourselves in.

Because the delusion of selfhood ensures that we view all events from  a purely personal perspective - we judge everything, and decide from our very narrow viewpoint if it's good, or if it's 'evil'.

At the most prosaic level: say an individual dies to save the many.

Bad for the individual, but good overall. And even the 'bad' probably (definitely if you hold with basic goodness) contained an important lesson for the person who died, and anyway death itself is only a local concept if its the case that we can't die.

I guess that while it seems the higher view eventually becomes a genuinely experienced reality for us you're right inasmuch as when we're in the mire and seeing things through a personal and ultimately selfish lens then it's you could say moot whether or not the above perspective is the reality.

But I'd say the bit that truly matters is how we respond to so called evil. (and I don't mean to come across as blase  by saying that, because there's so much prodigiously horrible that goes on in the world)  Because if we lash out out of fear and find ourselves unable to respond from love then that can only lead to escalation and even more evil and hence more suffering.

And while that suffering too is only a relative phenomenon, it feels bloody real. Although interestingly enough the thought of it is often worse  than the reality.....